Hunters are a special breed, dedicated to tracking down treasures, magical beasts, and even other men. But such pursuits require a license, and less than one in a hundred thousand can pass the grueling qualification exam. Those who do pass gain access to restricted areas, amazing stores of information, and the right to call themselves Hunters. Gon Freecss, a 12-year-old boy with the hope of finding his missing father, sets out on a quest to take the Hunter Exam. Along the way, he meets other applicants for the Hunter exam: Kurapika, Leorio and Killua.Can Gon pass the rigorous challenges of the Hunter exam and become the best Hunter in the world?His wild and epic journey is about to begin.

Hunter x Hunter is the kind of works that appear from time to time. Somebody below stated that this manga is one for the ages. Heís right.

The plot seems rather simplistic: a boy looking for his father. In order to reach this goal he becomes a hunter, and this title is what connects him with the other characters. From this you would expect a fantastic adventure. And this adventure happens, just with a dark spin. Togashi is a man that understood that the quality of a story doesnít rely only in which or what tropes are used, but in how they are used. The term for the technique that Togashi uses is deconstruction. This is what allows Hunter x Hunter to give some astonishing twists and ideas. A pretty memorable example of this is how a character actually is disturbed after killing somebody. How many times have you seen that in a shonen?

In this story we have a varied main cast that can easily grip you into the story. Our main character, Gon, who is energetic boy looking for his father; Killua, a boy that comes from a family of assassins; Kurapika, a young man looking revenge; and Leorio who wants to become a doctor. In fact, Hunter x Hunter has some of the strongest beginnings in shonen manga. But the development of the story is stronger. Hunter x Hunter follows an arc structure for the story. But every arc contribute to the plot and yet more. The most amazing thing is how these arcs arenít repetitive. Even the storytelling varies from arc to arc.

Another amazing feature of this manga is the battles. They are all around well-crafted and breathtaking. The concept of Nen is perhaps the most creative, sophisticated, original and complex power source until this day in action manga.

The only notable flaw I have seen so far is the inconsistency of the art. Sometimes is well or sometimes is awful. Yet, Hunter x Hunter is, along with FMA, the most well written shonen so far. Thereís no doubt about why Shonen Jump havenít rejected Togashi despite all the pauses he takes.

Other thing that has bothered me is that sometimes the situations are a little bit tedious (Greed Island and certain parts of the Chimera Ant). But, the interesting situations and the amazing character development is what kept me going.

I really like what Togashi is attempting to do in shonen manga. And I will love if his work has influence in future works of future authors.

I would recommend this manga to anyone that is looking for an excellent story. If you canít handle the art, you can watch both animes. But the 2011 version is the anime I would recommend the most since it is faithful to the source material.

The character development within the story is brilliantly written and realistically presented. I'm glad to have read this manga. Unfortunately, the art is a major drawback. As this is a manga, I can not excuse how lazy and sloppy the art is as a manga should be visually appealing in addition to having good characters and story. The pacing of the story is consistently good throughout the manga (with slight exception in the ant arc). I would recommend this to anyone.

I read this manga bcuz my friend said he'd pick up magi if I did HxH, and boy am I regretting doing this wager with him. the manga starts good, but a common reoccurring theme in this manga is : cool intro, great building, awesome climax, then a teeeeeeeerible ending with no satisfying conclusions. like every arc has a terrible ending, which is extremely annoying if you're a guy that likes satisfying closures and concrete conclusions within stories. the action is few and far between, and you'll have to go through a whole lot of jargon before you actually get to the good parts. and to make things worse these good parts are extremely short. maybe the fact that a lot of people harping about how great this manga is set lofty expectations that were never met, but this manga is average it best. way overrated. characters like killua n hisoka however keep it afloat, because if it was only gon and red eyes uchiha wannabe then gosh this manga would be a bore.

HunterxHunter is a very nice manga. The story was really lacking at first but it improves a lot after the hunter exams arc. My only problems is the art. When the story gets better, the characters' designs are sloppy and the background is pure white. It was obvious that the mangaka lost interest in the making of this manga and didn't want to draw anymore. It's really a shame cause the story is really interesting and it's definitely a must read.

Super powers, magic. At first I simply enjoyed the story, however once Nen was introduced, and the magic silliness really began, it ceased to be fun, and just became another superpower love fest. Not something I want to read. I could as easily read Naruto for that. If thats why you read the manga, then by all means, enjoy. If you're looking for more of a story, then silly superpowers, try something else.

I love the art style (esp at the beginning volumes): Simple but nice, love the way the actions were drawn. The current art has been worse, but because it's due to the mangaka's health issues, I can overlook it (sadly that many other readers can't). It doesn't bother me.I love the fact that it actually has a proper power system. All the rules and limitations, I love them all. The story is interesting, the battles involve many strategies and thinking (You don't just punch your opponents to death! You don't win because you love your friends and you believe in yourself! How wonderful is that!) And the characters are great, the friendship between Gon and Killua is one of the most unique and beautiful friendship ever, even the villian characters are likeable.

There are just three things I find annoying in the manga:- "The Gon" - typical shounen protagonist: simple mind, dumb, stubborn, unlimited potential... I just hate type of guy like that. (this also applies to Naruto and Luffy... haha). It seems his morals's started to become darker now, I'm looking forward to this developement. - The dragging in the Chimera arc. (Such a looong arc while Kurapika and Leorio are still absent, side characters I expected to die but did not). - And ofc, the lacking of Kurapika and Leorio. They are parted of the 4 main characters but they haven't appeared for so long. I want them to comeback and make their own arcs.

In conclusion, this is a great manga and I will surely keep up with it . I've already prepared myself to read it with my kids in the future... haha XD

I have been reading HxH since 2001 and am as satisfied as ever. Great characters and inventive stories are the strong points. Some rushed art later on and long gaps in the publications (he is a sickly so i consider this a non-isse) are the downsides. More Leorio would also have been better too but i can barely find deep flaws in this great series and hope for a few more years worth of content and a more direct sequel to the Chimera Ant arc story. I especially liked how Gon lost his humanity during that story while Meruem slowly turned human and relatable which is a hard feat as he started off as a cannibalistic child murderer. That whole narrative is best compared to the essentially perfect Parasyte and is destined to remain the high point of the series. The Shin York Arc was the next best thing and both showed how developed the world is and that a protagonist doesn´t have to be the vocal point or all powerful all the time. I am a bit surprised that SJ allowed all the dark themes and the excessive violence as it is even less young reader friendly than the infamous Fist of the North Star or JoJo. The art style may seem upbeat at first and humor runs throughout but i fully expect it to also switch to the Seinen Ultra Jump one of these days.HxH is the current golden standard for SJ action without a doubt and both anime adaptations are of high quality.The 2nd one may seems better as it covers more ground and skipped any form of filler but it´s pacing and some skipped content early on proved to be a problem when directly compared. Both have good ending points too as most arcs in the series tend to have. Yoshihiro main two previous works both feature good ideas but none impressed me overall. Yu Yu Hakusho (6/10) is still worth a read despite it´s uneven and somewhat crazy nature and it further features a surprising strong ending. Other adult audience friendly Shounen action drama are Claymore (8,5/10) or Shingeki no Kyojin - Before the Fall (9/10) while Rurouni Kenshin and Full Metal Alchemist still represent the golden standard. You know what? The first 2/3s of Naruto (7,5/10) are good too but don´t tell anyone.

Love all the characters, the good and the bad. The relationships between them are a joy to see as they meet, grow, and interact with one another, whether for good for evil. I love the manga just for the characters.

I also love the story, a boy off to find his father... though I wouldn't want to find a parent who abandoned me to go have fun off on his own, but whatever, suits this story fine. I like the power growth, the training, and all the things the boys have to learn and how they go through each obstacle. It was a delight to see overcome trials without having to yell about nakama and such. The humor's pretty good too.

However, there came a point where I believe the mangaka got too much into strategy and away from plain old storytelling. He obviously is very good at stories, but something must have happened personally because HxH severely suffered at the Ant monster arc. Toward the latter half of that arc, there was much narration going on rather than dialogue, which resulting in him telling the story rather than showing it. That's like having more stage direction in a play than the character's dialogue. We want to see the characters act, not be told how they are acting.

It wasn't a bad storyline, it just dragged on for far too long, moving away from the main story, and if I weren't so devoted to the characters I would have dropped it. Two of the characters from the beginning didn't even make an appearance... for what, 150 chapters? 200? I've never been so relieved to start a new arc in my manga-reading life.

Once that long and tedious arc was over, however, the story picked back up to its original good pacing and plotting. The art picked up as well. Hopefully, if and when the mangaka starts this again, he will not fall back into a convoluted, unnecessary story and stick to the original heart of the manga.

Up to v26 this is the best shounen of all time, and the art is good as it depicts the action properly.After 26 it falls victim to the "focus on the characters" imperative.What GoldenKaos wrote describes this manga perfectly, except the manga did go bad.I don't know how he could not see that everyrthing he praised disappears:Perfectly balanced nen abilities and plot devices are no more, replaced by more and more idiotic ideas."Scientific" explanations and overphilosophising replaces Togashi's own flawless system.

Just another generic power escalation shounen, full of cliches and devoid of originality.

All of the characters fit into standard shounen tropes, formula and action follow shounen tropes, like in every other shounen friendship, honor and bravery are escalated to values above everything else.Most of the supporting cast exists only to highlight how awesome, strong and brave Gon is, usually in their thoughts - "His potential is limitless", "In his eyes I could only see unwavering resolve", "He's already stronger than I am", "He progressed this much in just four days...", etc.

Another big fault is that it has no consistency, internal logic, or anything of the sort - characters act on impulse all the time, making everything random, unpredictable and just dumb, they keep overcoming their limitations with their will or resolve, making strengths of anything irrelevant, a dumb kid who barely trains bests people who trained for their whole lives because what? Just because he's the main character so he needs to be strong! Also, he's a kid of a super strong guy so he's also super strong. He's also kind, friendly, trusting, loved by animals, cute, fast learner.... you get the idea.

If it's your first shounen ever then you might like it. You might also like it if you're 11-13 years old. Otherwise I don't recommend reading it since you will only be disappointed. 3/10 is the most I can give it.